Breaking Point
by Squiid iink
Summary: Harry is reaching his breaking point, feeling guilt over Sirius' death. When Snape pushes him during potions class, he snaps. What will happen between them in the aftermath? not slash
1. Breaking Point

"Harry. Harry? HARRY!"

Harry Potter jerked back from his reverie to see the faces of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger peering at him over glasses of pumpkin juice.

"Harry, did you hear a word that I said?" asked Hermione, her right elbow pinning open a potions book, hand paging through another text, while her left hand held a half-eaten apple. "Apparently not," Ron interjected, flipping through the _Daily Prophet_, ignoring the front page in favor of the Quiddich section. Hermione sighed, glancing at him once more, the lines between her eyebrows changing from those of irritation to concern. "You look a bit pale, and you haven't eaten any lunch. Are you ill?" she asked.

Harry shook his head slightly, pulling himself back to reality "Just tired. I haven't been sleeping …well." _Or at all_, he added mentally. "Bad dreams," he explained.

"Is it you-know-who again? Have you told Dumbledore—"

"Just the normal sort of bad dreams, Hermione," Harry said, cutting her off before she could fall into her full-blown lecture mode._ The normal sort of dreams, the kind in which Sirius tumbled away again and again to death, as Harry uselessly tried to pull him back. Or Cedric Diggory's wide, dead eyes filled with terrible accusation. Or the newest one, which featured a solemn-faced, rumple-haired James Potter, who, sitting with Sirius, Lilly, and Cedric, informed Harry that really, he had expected more from a son of his;asking which friend would have to die next; asking if he was sure that he was worth these sacrifices--James' steady stare seemed to say that he doubted it. They were the normal sort of dreams that woke him in a cold sweat, that haunted his nearly sleepless nights and had begun to haunt his days as well._ "Not every little problem in my life is an effect of dark magic," he said, forcing a smile.

"Lay off him, Hermione. Tuning out your monologues on NEWT potions is probably a sign of mental health, not of illness," added Ron with a roll of his eyes. Hermione shot Ron a dirty look as Harry snorted.

"Ron, Harry and I will be late to potions if we don't leave now, and I'd rather not give Snape any excuse to take points from Griffindor," announced Hermione, pushing back her chair and shoving her scattered books into her bag.

"Not that he needs one, the greasy git," muttered Ron. "Merlin's beard, I'm glad I dropped that class. Oy, Harry, have a pumpkin pasty, you'll feel loads better," he said, tossing one in the direction of Harry's head. Harry's stomach churned as he glanced at the orange pastry.

"I think I lost my appetite when you mentioned Snape," he replied with a wan smile, as he flipped the pasty back to Ron, who shrugged and took a bite from it.

***

Harry settled beside Hermione at their desk at the rear of the Potions classroom. The dungeon door gave an agonized creak, then an ominous thud, closing behind Severus Snape as he entered the dungeon and stalked to the center of the room to face the class, upper lip curling faintly. "As you should well know, NEWTs are fast approaching. Great diligence and focus is required for potions-work at this level." He surveyed the Gryffindors with cold eyes. Granger, he saw with faint amusement, was leaning forward with rapt attention, nearly falling off the edge of her seat. His gaze paused on Potter, who seemed transfixed by a jar of dried flobberworm gizzards at the front of the front of the room. Snape noticed the bruselike darkness under the boy's eyes, only accentuated by the flickering torchlight of the dungeon, then felt a flicker of irritation at his own concern. "Some of us," he continued silkily, "will require more effort than others. Wouldn't you agree, Potter?" Granger elbowed the boy sharply in the ribs, and his attention returned to Snape. The boy blinked, then replied blankly,

"Yes, sir." Well, thought Snape, at least he seemed to be less arrogant than usual. Even if he likely had no idea what the question had been. He continued with the lecture.

"Today, we will be attempting the Draught of Melancholy, a NEWT level potion. I will advise all of you to pay close attention to the proper procedure, as the potion is extremely volatile during the middle stages of brewing. Instructions"—He waved his wand—"are on the board. You will have one hour. Begin."

"Honestly, Harry, you have to focus!" Hermione admonished. "This is the sort of thing that will be on the NEWTs, and if you plan to be an Auror…"

"I get it, Hermione. Honestly, I just have… a lot on my mind. I'm focusing."

She looked at him sharply. "Are you sure that you don't need to go to the infirmary?"

"Positive. Positive, Hermione! I'll crush the wartcap powder, you can distill the Glumbumble extract." Harry said. Hermione nodded, mollified, and lit a fire under their cauldron with a poke of her wand. Harry poured a handful of wartcap into his mortar and began grinding them with a pestle. Turning towards the front of the dungeon, he came face to face with Snape, who had silently glided across the room. _Lack sleep was dulling his reflexes, _Harry thought_. Sloppy._Snape stard into Harry's face for a long moment, then glanced at the wartcaps.

"That will need to be very coarsely ground, Potter," he said curtly, then turned on his heel to continue stalking through the rows of cauldrons. Harry squinted at the blackboard through the gathering haze of cauldron smoke. _Salamander blood… glumblebumble extract…syrup of hellbore…wartcap powder..belladonna leaf._ As he inhaled the acrid vapors of the dungeon, a slow throb of pain began in his temples and a wave of dizziness passed through him . Hermione mixed the salamander blood and the glumblebumble powder with two counterclockwidse and one clockwise stir of her wand, and the cauldron bubbled deep crimson. She turned to shred the Belladonna leaf into precise strips, using a freshly sharpened silver knife. _Focus, Harry,_ he told himself firmly.

Perhaps, with Hermione's help, this potion would satisfy Snape, Harry thought with a glimmer of hope as he poured the wartcap powder into the cauldron with six clockwise stirs of his wand. It hissed, then glimmered a soft silver. He added three drops of hellbore, and it sizzled louder and turned a violent green _…two stirs clockwise or counter-clockwise? _Harry thought, taking two steps towards the board. Two. He turned to see Hermione leaning over the cauldron. "Harry, this color isn't right—" the cauldron sent up a plume of smoke, and she stepped back, just as the potion shot up in a miniature fountain while the cauldron crumpled beside her. _Oh god, Hermione. What have I done?_ Harry's stomach dropped as adrenaline jolted through him , and he dove forwards to snatch the back of her robes, pulling her back against the dungeon wall as another shower of livid red sparks shot up.

Snape was suddenly there, swooping in like a massive black bat, wand moving in what was apparently a fire-extinguishing charm. The potion hissed as it was quenched. Hermione clutched Harry's arm, whitefaced and unsteady on her feet. Singed bits of her robe still smoked faintly, and livid burns were evident on her right hand, but, to Harry's great relief she seemed otherwise in one piece. Harry could feel the adrenaline jangling through what remained of his nerves, hands trembling as he pressed his shoulders to the cool stone of the wall for support. Snape turned from the smoking remnants of the potion to face the pair, black eyes narrowed and glittering and jaw clenched with the tension of anger.

"Brown. Bell." Snape hissed, taking Hermione's shoulder with near-gentleness and guiding her towards them. "Take Granger to Madame Pomfrey. Now." He passed a still-dazed Hermione to them, and they hurried from the room. "I hope that you're very proud of your work, Potter. Everyone's golden boy, isn't that right?" he asked softly, facing away from Harry. "Tell me, Potter!" he snarled, wheeling about, "Are you entirely incapable of following instructions? The directions that I have given specifically stated that the wartcap powder is not to be added before the syrup of hellbore, and moreover not before cooling the potion! Or shall we believe that you intentionally disobeyed the instructions in order to play the hero and save your friend, Miss Granger? Anything to feed your hero complex, isn't that right, Potter?" he paused before adding softly, "One would have thought that you had learned the repercussions of risking the lives of others with your selfish, headstrong behaviors."

For a moment the boy stiffened, as though he had been slapped, pain flickering across his face. For an instant, the black eyes met emerald, and in those wide emerald eyes, it was clear how deeply the boy was wounded. Then the vulnerability was gone, replaced by a masklike expression of impassivity, as blank as a closed door. The brief silence stretched for an eternity, the only sound in the room the dying sigh of the gently smoking potion. The mouth tensed, released. "You can go to hell," Harry said, voice unfathomable, before turning, exiting the dungeon without a backwards glance.

***

Harry walked from the dungeon, only the last vestiges of his self control keeping him from the run he broke into as soon as he was past the doorway. Breathing grown ragged, legs burning, his heart flung itself in a wild beat against his sternum as he sprinted up flight after flight of stairs, no destination in mind. He only stopped running when there were no more stairs, finding himself in one of the many unused towers of Hogwarts.

The open windows of the tower gave a view of the grounds of Hogwarts, the trees of the Forbidden Forest clinging to their last battered leaves in the chill the last fading days of autumn, but Harry had no appreciation for the view. Instead, he spread his cloak on the floor by the window, where he sat, back pressed to the wall, and buried his face in his hands. He could feel that something had crumbled within him, and that something tore at the edges of his soul with razor teeth. The perfect self-control had shattered. The carefully maintained balance had been lost, and he had fallen hard. The mask of impassivity, thought by Snape to be a sign of arrogance, had crumpled as surely and as irreparably as the destroyed cauldron. The last straw had been broken, and Harry felt devastatingly lost. His pulse trembled in the hollow between his collarbones and his hands shook as his head throbbed. The pain rattled through him like a drum whose meter was his heartbeat, leaving his soul bruised. He was so tired now, more tired than he'd ever been before. _Oh god._

***

Snape had dismissed the class early, for perhaps the first time in his career and now he stood in the center of his classroom, rubbing the bridge of his nose, Potter on his mind. He could imagine what Minerva would say to him. Or worse, the lecture that Dumbledore would give, disappointment in those blue eyes as they momentarily lost their twinkle.

Snape's casual jab at Potter had struck far deeper than he had intended or even imagined it would. The pain in those green eyes… that was not the casual arrogance that he was accustomed to dealing with in Potter. The image flashed in his mind again and again. _Merlin's beard_. A wave of guilt—not a familiar feeling—washed through him. Those eyes, Lilly's eyes, held a devastation that did not belong in the eyes of one so young, but was so hauntingly familiar. It had haunted the eyes of the soldiers in the last war, those who had lost so much, those who could not forgive themselves. When had the arrogant spoiled brat become this wounded young man? Snape sighed. He had made a mistake. He had been blinded by his own anger at James… He paced the room as he thought, then turned to his stores, gathering the ingredients for a locating potion.

***

Snape stood in the door of the tower, eyes on the boy, who seemed entirely unaware of his presence. The boy's rumpled cloak pooled about him, his arms wrapped tightly about himself, eyes unfocused and thoughts clearly in some other place, sinking in disheveled sorrow. His battered green sweater hung about his frame and he shivered slightly in the autumn chill, and Snape winced internally at how painfully thin the boy had become. Snape cleared his throat softly, and the boy started. His green eyes were wide, his face pale as wax, his cheeks almost hollow, and his torment and mistrust as clear on his face as if it had been written there. Snape's heart broke a bit right then.

A small noise jolted Harry from his reverie, and he turned to face… Snape. _Oh god, just what I need now._ The potion master's face was inscrutable, black eyes as indecipherable and as deep as the depths of a well. Harry was too tired to shout at him, too tired for this fight, but he began to stand, only to have a combination of cramped legs and a wave of light-headedness return him dizzily to the floor. Snape crossed the room to kneel by Harry. He dug something from his pocket to thrust into Harry's hand. Harry looked down to see… a chocolate frog? What in the hell? "Eat this. Your blood sugar has likely plummeted," the man told him. Harry slowly became aware of his stiff body and the cold that had seeped into his bones from the floor, and with still-shaking hands, Harry opened the wrapper and began to eat, eyes firmly focused anywhere but on Snape. The jagged throbbing in his head began to fade as the sugar began to do its work. Finished, he turned again to Snape, who still had not moved his body or his eyes, his hands folded and his pale, slim fingers interlaced on his lap, his coal-black eyes on Harry. Long moments ticked by, and Harry couldn't take this staring contest any more.

"I wouldn't want to waste any more of your precious time." Harry said softly, forcing his voice to stay steady. "You can assign me detention and leave. If you came here to gloat, don't worry. It would be easier for me to walk through that wall than to imagine myself a hero. I already know that I'm nobody's… golden boy anymore." His voice cracked with that last word, and still Snape's face remained unchanged and he remained unmoving. "What do you want?" he asked, voice rising now. "Whatever it is, it's not enough. It's never enough for you. It's never enough for anyone, is it?" The words tumbled free now entirely out of his control as he threw them at Snape. Harry was on the verge of tears now, to his horror, but couldn't stop the words bleeding from his tattered thoughts. "My parents, Sirius—I know I'm not worth it. I don't need you to remind me of my failures; I hadn't forgotten them. I don't need you to remind me. I see them every night, every day. I can't eat, I can't sleep, it's all I can do to make it through the day." His voice stretched thin and taught, as close to breaking as his heart was. "You should be glad. It's nearly impossible for you to hate me as much as I hate myself," Harry choked out, then buried his face in his hands. Now truly crying, doubled over on the tower floor, sobbing, fist covering his mouth to hide the noise of the silent sobs that wracked his body. To his shock, he felt a hand on his shoulder as Snape gingerly tried to comfort him. He leaned forward into Snape's bony shoulder to bury his face in the professor's black robes. "Harry, I'm so sorry." He whispered "It's not your fault. It was never your fault." Then Snape wrapped his other arm around Harry, kneeling on the floor to hold the boy as he shook, as he fell to pieces.

***

**This is my first fanfic! Please review! (reviews will warm my little heart; don't you want to do that?)**


	2. Still Reeling

Harry woke with a start to a pounding headache and a blurred view of a still-darkened room. _God almighty, that had been one awful dream…and horribly realistic_, he shuddered, feeling as though he had been run over by a truck. Or trampled by a particularly vicious Hungarian Horntail. He dropped his head back to the pillow with a sigh_._ Though this new nightmare was considerably better than the accusation of lifeless eyes…_Imagine what Snape would do if Harry hugged him. _Crucio_, probably._

Rolling to his left, Harry reached for his glasses on the bedside table where he placed them each night. His hand met only air. He blinked again, and the blurry room resolved itself slightly, enough for him to realize, with a plummeting stomach, that there were no glasses beside the bed. There was no bedside table. This was not the Gryffindor dormitory. And that had not been a dream.

***

Dumbledore's eyes were fixed intently upon Snape as he dispassionately recounted the afternoon's events. At the finish, Dumbledore exhaled deeply as he steepled his long fingers. It had taken Snape quite a bit of effort to keep emotion from his voice as he spoke; he struggled to keep his voice steady as he repeated the words, his own rash words, that had given the last twist of the knife, felt each blow freshly when he clinically described the shaking hands, the stricken eyes, the grief that had trembled through that small frame. Snape's face was icily still, his usual mask meticulously in place, but beneath those black robes, unseen, his slender hands twisted themselves into knots and fists as he choked away self-loathing and sharp despair.

"Have a peppermint humbug, Severus." Snape was torn between relief and annoyance. The relief lay in the fact that, though he was loath to admit it, Snape valued the Headmaster's approval, and took some small bit of solace in the fact that there was no trace of disappointment to be found in the glimmer of those light blue eyes. His annoyance came from the fact that he believed quite firmly that offers of candy were not an entirely appropriate response to the situation at hand. Snape had frequently pondered Dumbledore's offers of candy—perhaps they were meant to set, in a way, the terms of the discussion: you will do as I wish, even if it is only to take a candy. Or perhaps it was meant to imply that no matter the problem, it was rarely so serious that a moment could not be spared for a peppermint humbug. Then again, perhaps Dumbledore simply liked peppermint humbugs.

"Sir-"

"Really, Severus, I insist." With reluctance, Snape retrieved a pinstriped sweet from Dumbledore's desk, and with the smallest nod of approval, the Headmaster continued. "I had long suspected that the tension between you and Harry would lead to conflict at some point, but had not imagined that the results would be quite so…dramatic. "

Dumbledore paused briefly, considering his next words carefully. The pause was softly filled by the silvery whispers emanating from delicate instruments scattered about the room, and Snape's thoughts drifted to the surface._ Tension?_ thought Snape. _It had been more a state of war than a state of mere tension. _Ever since that first day of class, when the sight of the boy, so like his father, had awoken a trickle of long-dormant rage beneath his calm demeanor, and he had fired the first salvo. They had been at this private war for such a very long time, each Potions class, each detention, another small battle. But the damage that he had inflicted this morning… that did not have the taste of that scene on the cold tower floor—it seemed to him that they had both surrendered. _How long had it been since he had felt the embrace of another, even that desperate embrace, like the clinging of the near-drowned to any anchor? He could feel it still in his flesh, lingering as if had been burned there, deep beneath black cloak, beneath skin, beneath all his carefully constructed shields._

"In this case," the headmaster continued, "it seems to me that there is an opportunity for you and Harry to construct some sort of peace, however uneasy it may be. It is only human to be flawed, as I believe both of us well know, but occasionally our frailties and failures offer us opportunities. I feel that is best not to move Harry at the moment, if you have no objections. I believe that Harry will recover fully, given time and rest. The resilience of the human spirit,' he said gently, eyes softening, "is a remarkable thing." Snape raised himself from Dumbledore's chintz armchair slowly, suspecting that Dumbledore was not speaking only of Harry's spirit.

"Thank you for your time, Headmaster," Snape said as he turned to leave the room.

"One more thing, Severus?" Dumbledore's regarded Snape mildly over the silvered half-moons of his glasses. "Though he is James' son, remember that he is Lilly's son, as well."

***

"Harry Potter! Harry Potter, sir!" Harry was awoken with a nearly heart-stopping start for the third time that day, this time finding himself face-to-face with a pair of widened green eyes as large as tennis balls, close enough to his face that he could see them clearly without his glasses. "Dobby has brought you your breakfast, sir."

"My glasses-" Harry managed to choke out. The tennis-ball eyes blinked and disappeared, then loomed closer, and Harry felt the glasses pressed onto his face. "Thanks, Dobby," he managed. The house-elf bobbed into a bow, smiling so widely that his long, pointed ears twitched. Able to see again, Harry slowly took in his surroundings.

He lay in a tumble of flannel sheets at the center of a narrow bed in what he realized was a sparsely decorated bedroom. He imagined it must be one of the private rooms in the hospital wing, and wondered vaguely why Madame Pomfrey hadn't arrived yet. The pale green walls of the room were lit by soft white light suffusing from a translucent, glasslike ceiling. The effect of the room was the sensation that the occupant rested at the depths of a still lake, an effect that Harry found oddly comforting. He felt, briefly, as if he could float gently here, leaving all thoughts at the surface, to resting in stasis until he could manage to breathe again.

"Harry Potter, Dobby has brought you your breakfast!" Dobby squeaked in none-too-dulcet tones. Harry's attention returned to the house-elf, who thrust a heavily-laden tray onto Harry's lap. Scrambled eggs, bacon, porridge with berries, buttered toast, orange juice, and hot tea sat precariously before him. Harry's stomach clenched, twisting between hunger and nausea. A heaviness lay in his arms, and the idea of lifting a fork and knife suddenly seemed a Herculean task.

"I'm afraid I'm not very hungry," Harry told Dobby

"Dobby has made Harry Potter his breakfast and he must eat it!" a tone of indignation entered the high voice, and Harry weighed the trouble of breakfast against the trouble of an insulted house-elf. He began with the tea. When he had managed to choke down the eggs and a bit of the porridge, satisfaction entered the tennis-ball eyes and the ears ceased to quiver with indignation. Dobby removed the tray and presented Harry with a small vial of silvery liquid. "This is to help you sleep, sir." _Thank god. How he longed to slip away into dreamless sleep._ Harry drank it quickly; it seemed nearly tasteless. Satisfied, Dobby took the tray and the empty bottle and turned to leave.

"Thank you. Oh, and Dobby? Where exactly am I, if you don't mind my asking?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Harry Potter is in Mister Snape's room!" Dobby squeaked exuberantly, then disappeared. Harry's thoughts stopped altogether for a moment. His sleep-sodden mind was slow to put two and two together, let alone to fathom the complex mathematics that had landed him in Snape's private rooms. He felt a wave of dizziness, unsure if it was the effects of the potion. _Oh, Merlin._ The memory of everything that that he had shouted at Snape came rushing back to him. _And the slow burn of those tears and the way that his cheek had pressed to the curve of Snape's shoulder beneath the armor of those inky robes._ He dragged the blankets over his face and the potion acted with merciful speed.

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**Thank you all for your reviews and your encouragement! I've decided to extend the story a bit (see? Your reviews are like_ magic_!) It should be four or five chapters in total by the end. It may be a week or two before my next update, as I'm going back to school, and will have homework and other sorts of nastiness to leach away my time. Hope you enjoyed this! :)**


	3. Fall Back to Earth

Snape watched Harry as he lay, submerged in the very depths of dreamless sleep. The sheets wrapped about him as if to form a fabric chrysalis, cocooning him through the bitter throes of winter, waiting to burst free in the release of spring. The were shoulders limp now, that had been drawn tight as a bow under unthinkable weight; the line of tension between the brows was now brushed away by the soft oblivion of sleep, the bruise-dark circles under the eyes were faded, but still distinct. The weight of the burden the boy had carried was only evident now that it had been lifted.

The boy seemed so vulnerable now, the defiant line gone from his mouth, the iron of his spine softened. He felt a stab of protective instinct jar through him, felt compelled to protect this fragile sleeper. He fought the urge to brush the comma of dark hair from the pale forehead, the tender gesture of a parent. _No_, he told himself. _No, there is a line that cannot be crossed. Soon the Dark Lord will call you to him. He will ask of this, and you will have to lie, you will have to hide this memory away and swear your fealty to him. You will not be able to hide this; it will be burned into your skin, memory, heart_. He forced himself to walk from him.

He sat at his desk at the front of the dungeon, upon which rested a stack of essays on the properties and uses of hippogriff talon in potionmaking, but he made no move to begin grading them. In the dim light of the dungeon, the jars of potions ingredients, the eyes of pufferfish and newt mutely regarding him from the briny confines of their jars, were his only witnesses. A lesser man might have buried his head in his hands, but Snape sat as if frozen.

_You must control yourself_, he told himself.

A thread of hope had quietly wound itself into his heart, and it tore through him with every beat. The bitter voice of experience whispered to give up, give in, surrender that last hope. The anguish he faced now was unlike anything he had ever known. The choice to become a spy had been an act of simplicity, by contrast. He had been fueled by the rage and loss that had hummed through his veins, hollowed out by grief like the rush of acid through the engine of a machine. He had nothing then to lose but his life, and he had not cared for that, either. But this hope gave him so very much to lose. The irony of the situation did not escape Snape. Harry and he were more alike than either had ever dared think, let alone admit. _Come to peace_, Dumbledore had said. How he longed for that peace... He was offered a salvation that he had never thought possible, by an incomprehensible twist of fate. But at what cost did redemption come? _What a pair we make, Potter, champion of the light, and I—spy, traitor to the light, the dark, and myself. _It was a peace that placed the lives of both the champion and the spy in further danger. No. He could not risk the boy's life for the sake of his own tender feelings. _I cannot, will not, be ruled by my emotion._ He thought of the still, fragile boy in the next room.Snape walked a thin line, and all that lay below him was air. A voice whispered to him, _You can save him only by leaving him._

***

Harry woke gently this time, slowly surfacing to break into consciousness. He drifted, becoming aware of the dryness of his mouth, the press of the pillow against his cheek, the muted light of the room that seeped through his eyelids. The room, when he opened his eyes, was a blur of light and shadow. As he blinked the sleep from his eyes, one long shadow resolved itself into the black robes and pallid face of the Potions Master. The dark man approached slowly, studying Harry. When the boy managed to raise himself from the bed, he placed a glass on the table before him. Harry eyed it with drowsy suspicion.

"It is only water, Mr. Potter. You have slept for two days; I made the rash assumption that you would feel thirst. I assure you that I am not attempting to…further harm you." There was a note in Snape's voice that Harry did not recognize. Harry opened his mouth to reply, only to find that his voice had dried to a feather-thin rasp. _Two days. What had they told the students?_ _I wonder if Hermione and Ron know the truth. _ His stomach twisted as he thought of Hermione and Ron. The knowledge that he had harmed Hermione, that he could have seriously injured her, even accidentally, was a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach. The image of her wax-pale face in the potions classroom flashed in his mind; the memory of the explosion replayed itself in his mind. He forced himself back to the present.

Harry took the glass carefully, finding his hands steadier than they had been in weeks. _Why doesn't he say anything? Where was the mockery, the rapier of sharp wit? _Harry thought. His mind began to work as he studied the professor's face while he drank, remaining guarded. There was no anger, no cruelty in those dark eyes, Harry realized, to his relief. _There was, unbelievably, almost a gentleness in his voice._ He had to say _something_ to Snape. He had so many questions. With that thought, a spasm of pain shot through Harry's forehead as Snape's hand pressed hard to his forearm. _Was Voldemort summoning his followers?_, Harry wondered. He felt that he must speak now.

"Professor, the things that I said to you in the tower--" Harry began tentatively, and the expression on the potions master's face changed.

"Potter, I'm afraid that now is not the time to discuss that. Dobby will escort you to the hospital wing." The man started to his feet and swept from the room.

As the house-elf led him through the concealed passageways of the hallway, he couldn't help but to feel oddly bereft, to feel as though Snape had rejected him. _You're being stupid_, he told himself. _You have a nervous breakdown in front of a man who has loathed you for years and then you're sad when he doesn't pat you on the head and tell you that it'll all be okay. _Was it some effect of his first sleep-deprived, then drug-addled mind that he now felt this way? In the tower, for just a moment, even as he fell to pieces, he had felt safe in a way that he could not remember ever in his life: not at Privet Drive, not at Hogwarts, not even at the Burrow._ I can only imagine what Sirius, or worse, my father would think._ He felt another wave of guilt at that. _But if he doesn't care,_ a small voice protested,_ why did he come to the tower? _He turned the problem over and over again in his mind, as if it were a puzzle-box that he was trying to open, but by the time he reached the hospital wing, he was still left without answers.

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**Thank you for your reviews! They really do encourage me to write more, and to write faster. Sorry that this is more of a filler chapter; the next one should be better!**


	4. Maintain Consciousness

Harry exited the passageway at Dobby's direction, ducking though a narrow opening and passing into what appeared to be a storage closet; the shelves were lined with rolls of bandages and the air held the astringent scent of antiseptic. He slipped from the closet and wandered amidst rows of empty, clean-sheeted beds. There was no sign of Madam Pomfrey. _I could just leave, he thought. I could just run for it. The sleeping potions had nearly worn off. I could find Ron and Hermione, they would know what to do… Oh, no, I can't tell Ron. He'll think I've gone batty enough as it is, without my telling him that I think that maybe, just maybe, Snape might just be a lovely person after all. And oh, god, Hermione. I still haven't found out how she is._ He felt a sudden knot in his stomach._ I wonder what they've told them, to explain those two missing days… if Dumbledore told Ron and Hermione the truth. And what they told the rest of them… That I inhaled too many fumes in potions class and went off my rocker. Too many cruciatus curses have addled my mind… I've had too many bludgers to the head. Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world, has gone nuttier than a chunk of peanut brittle. He's sad, because he's been having bad dreams._

"Mister Potter! I didn't see you when you came in." Madam Pomfrey bustled down the rows of beds, sparing him the effort of explaining his entrance by continuing to fuss over him. "Your fellow students have been informed that you have contracted doxypox and were in quarantine temporarily. Professor Snape and the Headmaster have informed me that you are in fact, suffering from exhaustion, which should be cured by plenty of sleep and rest." She looked him up and down with sharp eyes. "and food, I should think. Although, I must say, you look far better than I might have expected. Professor Snape can be extremely effective when he is motivated. Now, I'll bring you to a private bed." She spoke as she led him to a smaller room with individually curtained beds, a tray filled with gleaming vials of potions drifting behind her at the flick of her wand. "Your friends, Mister Weasley and Miss Granger are eager--" At the mention of Hermione, Harry spoke for the first time, interrupting the mediwitch.

"How is Hermione? Is she all right? Her burns, I mean, from…" he trailed off; in his head, he finished the sentence—_from what I did to her._ Pomfrey's eyes softened a bit as she paused in her brisk preparation of potions.

"Miss Granger is perfectly fine. _Perfectly fine_. She had a superficial burn on her hand, nothing that a quick charm and a bit of salve can't make as good as new, and was a bit shaken up. She was back to class within the hour. I've seen far worse produced in potions class, Mister Potter, believe me. Now, she, and Mister Weasely, are eager to see you, if you are feeling well enough." She pulled back the covers of the bed, then stepped back, waiting for him to climb in. He complied, removing his shoes and climbing onto the soft mattress, feeling the cool sheets close around him like a cocoon. "You'll take this potion now," she said, giving him a green potion, which he drank down immediately; it tasted faintly of mint. He realized suddenly that he should have asked what the effects of the potion were before drinking it, as his memory flashed back to a potion taken in a different set of private rooms. "It is a calming draught. I've sent for a tray of food from the kitchen, which ought to arrive at any minute. After you eat, I will give you other potions, which are best not taken on an empty stomach. It is nine o' clock now." For a moment, he wondered whether it was nine in the morning or in the afternoon, but realized that it must be night because no sunlight lit the room, and a shred of dark sky was visible through the high windows. Two days of sleep deep within the castle had thoroughly scrambled his sense of time. "If you rest all day, you may see your friends this now; they will, of course, have to leave before curfew. Assuming that you would like to see them?"

"Oh, yes, I would. Very much so," he reassured her, doing his best to appear energetic.

"Good. I shall return in a little while to check on you." She paused a moment, then leaned over the bed to gently straighten the sheets around him, tucking them in about his shoulders. She rested one hand on his shoulder for an instant. "Rest well, Mister Potter." She said softly, then bustled from the room, swiftly resuming her brisk attitude.

Harry sunk back into the pillows, watching the white cap of the mediwitch as it receded down the long hall. That was… unusual. She had actually tucked him in. He couldn't recall the last time that he had been tucked in. When he was an infant, surely. The Dursleys had never tucked him, that much was for certain. The earth would sooner reverse itself on its axis than the Dursleys would show him any gestures of tenderness. What had he done to deserve that tenderness from Pomfrey, he wondered. He had nearly blown himself, injured a fellow student, caused worry for Dumbledore and for his friends. He hardly deserved it, he thought. Any more than he deserved tenderness from Snape. Oh, god, he thought, tossing onto his stomach to bury his face in the cool pillow as his cheeks were suffused with a flush. _Did that really happen? Was that some fevered imagining of my overburdened nerves, that I imagined tenderness in those black eyes? How humiliating. To show my greatest weaknesses, my greatest fears to a man who despises me, who hates the very blood that runs through my veins._ He burrowed deeper into the sheets, closing his eyes, wishing for a moment of dreamless sleep.

When he slept, his dream was familiar. He knelt on damp, dark grass, the white face and dark, empty eyes of Cedric Diggory staring into his own. He was paralysed, the cold of the air creeping into his bones. Cedric's pale lips moved. "Why Harry? Why didn't you save me? You let me _die_." Harry couldn't breathe. Suddenly, he felt hands on his shoulders, suddenly he was turning to look into raven-dark eyes. The eyes held him steady, the hands pulled him above water, where he could breathe again. "It's not your fault. It was never your fault," whispered a voice. Snape's voice. He woke with a start.

Voices drifted through the white curtains that surrounded his bed. It was Ron and Hermione, and a spurt of joy warred with a nervous clench in his chest. The curtains opened, and Hermione jumped forward, embracing him tightly. Ron hung back, somewhat awkwardly.

"Oh, Harry, we were so worried about you!" she exclaimed, her wild hair tickling the end of his nose.

"Hermione. How's the hand?"

"Oh, brilliant. No scar at all." She said, showing the hand, which as she said showed not a mark. There was no hint of anger or resentment on her face, only a smile. He felt the knot in his stomach unclench by fractions. "Oh, Ron brought you your dinner," she said, jumping up. Ron put a covered silver tray on the side table. Ron pulled the opposite bed closer to Harry and flopped on it, while Hermione perched on the edge of it. Harry opened the tray. Roasted chicken, a baked potato, green beans, sliced berries. They were looking at him expectantly, so he speared a bite of chicken and chewed it unenthusiastically.

"hey, mate" Ron said. "I heard about you and Snape." Harry felt his heart quicken, and his throat tightened around his second bite of chicken. _Wait, he knew? How did he find out? Had Snape told everyone? Did everyone know?"_Well done, telling that greasy git off. He's had it a long time coming, the way he treats you. Listen, they told us that you had doxypox, but clearly that's a lot of bollox."

"We thought that you would have mentioned it if you had purple pustules on your chest and the soles of your feet," chimed in Hermione. " But we couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone. Not McGonagall, not Madam Pomfrey, not Dumbledore."

"All we knew was that whatever it was happened right after you left Potions. Listen, I'll drop Snape into a vat of bubotuber pus if he laid a hand on you. Did he slip you something during class, and they're covering it up, or what?"

"Ron!" exclaimed Hermione in scandalised tones.

"Seriously, I wouldn't put it past the greasy old bat!"

"Actually, it was just…I just sort of collapsed. Too little sleep," he told them, embarrassment faintly coloring his voice. "I guess they just didn't want to tell everyone that The Boy Who Lived can stand up to Voldemort, but not to sleep deprivation," he added with self-deprecating sarcasm.

"Oh, Harry. I should have listened to you when you said that you weren't sleeping well." She raked a hand through her hair, making it swirl even more wildly around her shoulders. She cupped her chin in her palm. "Sometimes I wonder if Dumbledore knows what he's doing… it's an enormous burden to place on one person."

"'mione, Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard to have lived since Merlin," Ron said indignantly, ears turning red as he raised himself straighter on the bed. Harry stuffed the last of the chicken in his mouth in order to avoid involvement in the conversation. "Don't ya think that he knows what he is doing, whether or not he wants to tell us all about it?"

"That's not the issue, Ron," she snapped back, anger swirling like electricity in her eyes. "It's not exactly Harry's best interests that Dumbledore has in mind. Dumbledore has a plan, but he's not planning what's going to make Harry happy or even what's going to keep him sane. He's planning how to defeat Voldemort, and Harry is just a pawn in that plan. How many times has Harry been nearly killed? The things he's gone through for this— being _Crucio_ed, seeing Cedric die, losing Sirius. How much of that is because of Dumbledore's plans? Fighting Voldemort since he was _eleven_? Nobody ever asked Harry if he wanted this. And what thanks does Harry get for it? He gets a pat on the head, a pep talk, and sent back to his aunt and uncle's house every summer. I mean, Dumbledore cares about Harry, but when it comes down to it, he's still a pawn in Dumbledore's plan to defeat Voldemort." Ron was flushing, the red creeping from the tips of his ears to spread across his entire face.

"Hermione, I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you grew up in the wizarding world, you'd know--"

"Don't start that on me, Ron." Her voice was low and steady, but firm as iron. Ron took a deep, angry breath, then paused and let it out.

"Mione—I'm not going to fight about it here." He turned to Harry. "I'm glad that you're feeling better. I'll come and see you tomorrow, if you're not out of hospital by then." He turned on his heel and left the room.

"Sorry about that, Harry," said Hermione softly, once Ron had gone. Her shoulders slumped a little.

"It's all right. Actually," Harry said, "I have something to talk to you about. It's probably better if Ron isn't here. It's about Snape." A crease formed between her brows. "Do you think that it's possible that… well, that he's not the greasy git that we thought he was?" Hermione was silent for a few long moments. Then, with a flick of her wand, she cast a Muffliato charm to muffle their conversation to outsiders.

"I assume this has something to do with where you were for those two days." She was entirely too intelligent for her own good, Harry thought. She had seen right through him.

"This doesn't leave the room." She nodded, leaning forward towards him. "Snape was there when I…collapsed. The way he acted was unexpected."

"How so?"

"He was…comforting. Nice." He didn't add, _he let me hug him; he hugged me back._ "briefly."

"I think that he's more complex than we, well, especially Ron, give him credit for. I think that you should give him a chance to be something other than the enemy. And that if he gives you a chance… well, maybe he can see you as something other than James Potter's son. I think--" Madam Pomfrey's footsteps rang down the polished floor, rapidly approaching, and Hermione quickly dismissed the muffling charm.

"Miss Granger, I'm afraid that Mister Potter needs his rest," Pomfrey said, standing at the entrance of the room.

"I was just about to leave. Harry, I brought you a few book. Hogwarts history—not schoolwork, don't worry." She placed them on the stand by the bed, and leaning down to his ear, whispered, "if you need anyone to talk to, ever, I'm here, okay?" and gave him a quick, bonecrushing hug, before trotting out of the room. Madam Pomfrey sent the empty dinner tray floating from the room with a flick of her wand. She looked at him with that sharp gaze of hers and set a vial of violet potion by his bedside—dreamless sleep potion, he knew, he could recognize it by now. "Take this before you sleep. Which should be soon. Good night, Mister Potter." She closed the curtains about the bed and partially closed the door to the room as she left. Harry lay back in the bed, eyes on the windows high above the bed, which were velvet-dark now; he must have slept through all of the afternoon. He did not feel tired yet. His head hummed with thoughts. He thought of Hermione. How could he merit such friendship, especially after the harm he had caused her?

But what of Sirius and what of James--what would they have thought of Harry associating with Snape... Harry could imagine what Sirius would say about _Snivellus_... but the memory of that scene by the lake flashed against his closed eyelids. _"Leave him alone. What's he done to you?"..."Well, it's more the fact that he __exists_, if you know what I mean…" A feeling of revulsion rose in his throat. He thought of the Snape that he had thought that he knew, contempt written in every curve of that sneering mouth. How could this be reconciled with the man who had held him while he had fallen to pieces? He had been stripped of all armor, he had been utterly and completely vulnerable. And when he could have destroyed him, Snape had saved him. Of all the improbable saviors… no, he had not expected his savior to be a crow-eyed ex-Death Eater. He had misjudged Snape. He had misjudged Snape as surely as Snape had misjudged him, he thought. If the spoiled, arrogant brat was really a lonely orphan, who was the contemptuous master of the dark arts? Harry's thoughts were a tangled chain. And what would he do, now? What could he do, now? He would not sleep yet; he turned the tangle over and over in his mind while the violet potion glittered untouched on the nightstand.

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**a/n: Sorry about the long update wait. Blech, school--such a distraction from important things such as these! Thank you for all the lovely reviews. (p.s. it will NOT be a Snarry- not that I don't love a good Snarry...) Next chapter will have more Snape/Harry interaction! :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Snape pressed his hand to his forearm as Harry left the dungeon. The look in the boy's eyes—no. He would not think of that, not now. That was the last thing that he should think of; he had only minutes to spare now. He entered another tunnel, making his way towards the borders of the castle grounds, where he could apparate to join the Dark Lord. He gathered the memories of the previous two and a half days—embraces and eyes and tears, the cold tower and Dumbledore's office and the sight of Potters small, still form in his private rooms. He imagined them as a gleaming length of silver thread in the chains of his memory, cut the length out with the skill of a surgeon performing an amputation, and wound the memories up into a tiny bead of quicksilver. He wrapped it in shrouds of shadow, buried it deep under the twisting roots of his mind. The Dark Lord would no doubt inquire into Potter's status; it was probable that Draco had already informed his father to Potter's two-day absence, and that the senior Malfoy had, in turn, informed the Dark Lord. In that case, there would be pain awaiting Snape on this night, as Voldemort would have expected to be informed of this occurrence much earlier. A lesser man than Severus Snape would have sighed at the prospect, but Snape's mask was already firmly in place, lip curled in the faintest of sneers, eyes dark and impassive, revealing as few secrets as the depths of an unfathomable well.

The dark mark gave another throb, as sharp as if the tattooed snake had sunk its inky fangs to the bone. Snape felt the castle wards release their grip, and, fingers pressed to the skull and snake, disappearated. The dark mark led him to apparate below the wrought iron gateway before a manor. Standing on the brink of the gate, he held his hesitation as tight as an indrawn breath, then buried it deep within himself, buried it where it belonged, with any other stray fragments of emotion that remained. A sliver of moon was in the process of retreating past the peaked turrets of the manor, leaving the grounds striped with violet-blue shadows the color of the blood still wrapped in veins or gathering in bruised flesh. Snape strode up the sinuous pathway in a billow of dark robes. Beyond the iron gates and stone walls that surrounded the mansion lay rolling hills, dark hillocks of shadow rimed with moonlight. The wind carved itself dark eyes and sharp teeth; it carved itself eager lips, eager to kiss, to drink, to devour. Snape faintly heard the bleating of sheep, no doubt safely tucked away in their fold for the night, bleating with contentment in a perfume of warm wooliness and the amber scent of hay-warmed breath. He wondered what they would think, in their soft brains, had they known that a creature infinitely more dangerous than any wolf sat enthroned within sight of their frail paddock. Twig-entangled trees shifted above his head, leafless branches naked to the night, and he strode through shadow; his white face and pale hands remained, robes and eyes swallowed in shadow.

The door was slightly ajar before him, and he stepped into the shadowy vestibule, following the narrow corridor until it opened into a wide chamber illuminated by a few branches of candles. At the far side of the chamber, the Dark Lord sat upon a throne of dark wood, his robes spilling about the carved clawed feet of the chair, his corpse-pale hands spread about the arms of the throne; the bluish pallor of his skin was unwarmed by the coppery candlelight. Six Death Eaters stood in a loose ring about him already… Rookwood, Macnair, Mulciver Dolohov, Malfoy, and Bellatrix Lestrange. Lestrange stood close to him, hovering at his right hand, the candlelight falling on her face to fully illuminate the expression of rapture that glowed on her face. Her dark hair rose in a halo about her face, her skin bright as if shaped of beaten gold, her heavy-lidded eyes glimmering darkly, her gaze fixed upon her lord—she seemed a perverse representation of a saint in ecstasy. Snape knelt before the Dark Lord, lips brushing the hem of his robe. "My Lord." Nagini shifted beneath his throne, then moved in a whispering of scales and flickering tongue. She twined herself about the throne, wrapped about the dark wood, tail lost in the pool of the Dark Lord's robes, draped herself about his shoulders, her head resting by his ear, swaying as her pink tongue flickered in the shadowy air, tasting her master's scent.

"Severusss. You may risssse." His voice was high and cold, as if he spoke across wintry wastes that drew each word into a single razored ice crystal. Snape rose, head still bowed, and stepped back to take his place in the circle. As the snake swayed, candlelight glinted from her scales, jewel-like. Voldemort lifted a pale hand, lazily caressing her head and then the soft white of her throat with long fingers, and the lids of the snake's slit-pupiled eyes dropped as the irises darkened to molten gold under his touch. The tongue flickered against the fingers, drinking the scent, the flavor of him in, while the blushing pink of the moist tongue made an incongruous contrast against the cadaverous digits. He spoke to the serpent in syllibant, liquid tones as he stroked her. Bellatrix's gaze flickered, glancing sideways to the snake with the thunderous eyes of a jealous lover, and Snape felt a glimmer of amusement at her envy. The Dark Lord shifted and spoke.

"I have called this intimate gathering that we might discusss several important issuesss. I think that we ssshall begin with dear Harry Potter…Luciusss has informed me that Draco has alerted him that Potter has been absent from classes for the past two daysss. I had hoped that you, Severusss, could allow us some insight into this situation." Snape stepped forward into the center of the ring.

"The boy had contracted doxypox and was placed in quarantine, my lord. He should be released by tomorrow morning. He has not sustained any permanent damage…unfortunately. I crave your pardon for not reporting this information to you sooner, my lord. Dumbledore requested that I personally brew the curative potions for the brat, and I saw no way of alerting you to the developments without arousing suspicions. The doddering old fool is nearly overwhelmed in his concern for the boy." His lip curled contemptuously as he spoke of the headmaster. "At present, it does not seem that Dumbledore will not request that I resume occlumency lessons with the brat this term—boy is the most incompetent legimens that I have ever had the misfortune to teach, and Dumbledore seems to have realized the boy's ineptitude. Though I do not crave additional interaction with the boy, nor do I enjoy seeing the…insipid contents of his mind, it was useful have the opportunity to examine his mind for any possible weaknesses. As for the headmaster, he has not created any new plans against you, my lord. He seems to still be fixated upon the battle at the Department of Mysteries. He is ruled by his emotions, my lord. His sentimentality is cloying."

"Ah, Severus. Thank you for your report. Nonetheless, I am disturbed by your laxity in reporting to me. You are a clever man; I trust in your abilities to find some way to report to me. You will have to be punished."

"Yes, my lord. I crave your pardon." His words were soft, tinged at the edges with the appropriate amount of regret at having failed his lord.

"_Crucio._" Snape dropped to the ground, pain surging through his body as lightening through a copper wire. Every muscle in his body convulsed. His bones felt as though they were of molten iron. He bit back a scream, teeth grinding so tightly that he thought they would shatter. Every nerve was aflame, every vein pumped acid. HE felt as if his bones were melting, cracking onto razored shards, as if her were being burned alive from the inside, as if every inch of his skin was being flayed from the muscle with molten copper wires. He was dimly aware of the movement of his limbs against the cold stone of the floor as his muscles spasmed, his eyes open, registering the room about him without processing it, seeing the face of Bellatrix, her lips parted in joy, of Lucius, hair stark as a frozen waterfall against his dark robes and blue eyes closer still, expressionless, of the Dark Lord who leaned forward, flat nostrils flaring, mouth twisting into a smile. His mind flailed, faltered, a dust-winged moth beating itself against the glass of a lantern, desperately begging for the light. He cried out at last. They all did; any man with a tongue would scream if he was under the Cruciatus Curse for long enough, and if he had no tongue, his mouth would soundlessly shape itself into that familiar expression that came from bearing unbearable pain—under the Cruciatus Curse, each moment was eternity, each second a fresh new hell. Besides, it pleased Voldemort, the screaming… Calm, calm. A fragment of himself remained at a distance, feeling only the faint echoes of the pain that convulsed his body, not ruled by emotion, not ruled by physical pain. This fragment was the part of him that mattered. It was the stone beneath the swift running water, the stone that turned the river's flow. He watched through a mirror darkly, through a cataract of ice, from the depths of dark water. The scream that wrenched from his throat at last, he heard as though it was only a fragment of memory, drifting on the wind like a dark shred of silk, left to be arranged carefully, categorized within the rest of his memories. At last the pain stopped and he came back to himself, his disjointed mind reassembling itself. His breath burned in his lungs, he lay upon the ground, then pulled himself to his knees. "I trust that in future, you will remember your priorities, Severus."

"Yes, my lord," Snape rasped in scorched tones. "Thank you, my lord"

"Come here, Severus." On his knees still, Snape moved before Voldemort, his eyes on the hem of the Dark Lord's robes. A cool, dry finger lifted his chin. "Look at me, Severus." He met Voldemort's eyes, slit-pupiled irises burning black beneath the curved hood of the hairless brow bone, and instantly felt him in his mind like a breath of dank marsh air, sifting through his memories, leaving a dark-stained trail of fingerprints. He found himself watching Potter, who tossed in a starch-sheeted hospital bed, green eyes glassy with fever, violet pustules livid on his pale chest, as his own lip curled in contempt. He watched Dumbledore through a haze of silver fumes, letting lacewing flies drop one by one at precise intervals into a cerulean potion, noting with a veiled distain the concern glittering in those pale blue eyes. He rifled through memories with lazy cold fingers, leaving a cold trail through Snape's mind.

His touch was heavier than usual, Snape thought dizzily. He tossed up a memory to the icy touch, and he was on his knees before the Dark Lord for the first time, looking into those dark eyes, barely a man then, pledging his loyalty and his life to the Dark Lord. In the days before Voldemort had worn the eyes of a snake and the face of a corpse. The worship, the surge of joy that he had felt—that he had found his own people, now, that finally he would be accepted and appreciated. The heady intoxication, as if drunk on too many glasses of sun-warmed, oak-aged mead, the sweetness of honey humming in his heart as at last he felt that at last he belonged, and entwined with that joy, the vow that he would give anything to preserve that feeling. Snape snapped back to the dark chamber and found himself swaying, supported only by those cool reptilian fingers that clasped his jaw. The lipless mouth curved into a smile, baring yellow teeth as pitted and as crooked as old tombstones in the churchyard. "Very good, Severus. Stand and take your place."

"Thank you, my lord," he said, inclining his head as he stepped away with careful steps, forcing his legs to behave as though they were made of muscle and bone and not of jelly, refusing to reveal the physical strain of the Dark Lord's ministrations.

"Mulciver, what progress have you made at the Ministry?"the dark lord asked, turning his attention from Snape.

Snape forced his mind from the convulsions of his nerves, from the quiver of his muscles, from the ache of his too-tightly clenched jaw. He bundled the pain away, shut it tightly in another box in his mind, focusing his attention entirely upon Mulciver's report on his work at the ministry; he now controlled nearly a dozen upper level Ministry workers through use of the Imperius Curse. As he had failed to obtain certain information that Voldemort had desired, however, he was subjected to nearly a minute of the Cruciatus Curse, his shrieks filling the dark room. Malfoy reported on his work with the Daily Prophet, which was apparently a stunning success; the Prophet would run a two-page piece in the Sunday morning paper calling for Dumbledore's resignation, or sacking, on the basis that he was suffering from dementia, as evidenced by his belief in the resurrection of Voldemort. Lucius' thin lips twitched with faint amusement as he described the article, while Bellatrix let out a high, wild laugh; the irony of the situation did not escape them. At last, the meeting concluded and the Death Eaters departed, all but Bellatrix, who stayed at her lord's side. They left, striding silent into the night; the moon had retreated below the horizon and the stars, keeping distant and solemn watch, hung from the black ribs of the sky. They vanished one by one, until Snape alone was left, the night reaching on before him and the Dark Lord before him, the night a palpable thing, a dark slinky thing that wrapped its inky fingers about him. He paused a fraction of a moment longer, alone with the thundering of his own heart, and then he disapparated as well, beginning the trek from the edge of the castle wards to his office. He did not light his wand to show the way; he knew this path by heart.

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A/N: the story seems to have taken on a life of it's own; I hadn't intended this chapter to exist... Snape and Harry will interact NEXT chapter, then! Sorry that Snape doesn't talk/think about his true feelings about Harry at all this chapter, I thought it was better than risking Voldemort seeing the truth. I don't think that I got Voldemort's tone quite right, but hopefully he's creepy enough. Oh, and I realized that I set the Death Eater meeting at nine o' clock in the morning...I don't exactly envision the Dark Lord as an early riser, so I went back to last chapter and fixed it.

Martionmanswife:Thank you! Sorry for the tears; I hope that they were worth it.

Pellegrina: I suppose that Snape could be discovered, but that's a fic that I couldn't bear to write. Ah, Dumbledore. He _is_ rather manipulative, and while in the end it's all for the right end, I always felt that poor Harry was getting caught in the machinery as all the plans rattled forwards. It particularly left a bad taste in my mouth when, in HBP, Dumbledore made Harry feel terribly guilty about not getting the memory from Slughorn.

Alex: I probably put that badly. I suppose that what I meant was that the person that Harry thought Snape was and the person who he really is are very different. But of course, Harry had no way of knowing that, whereas Snape's misjudgement of Harry was Snape's own fault, the result of his prejudices against Harry's father, and probably his guilt over Lilly's death and the fact that she died to save Harry. So Snape appears differently than he truly is due to his own actions, and misjudged Harry, again, through his own actions. Pah. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I agree with you.

Nymma: Thanks! Next chapter, I promise, they shall meet again!

Chalyn: Thank you! If only I could take a class in fanfic, things would be perfect.

misundersnape: This chapter may have been born in response to your query about snape and voldemort :) I had originally planned to cut to the aftermath of the meeting, but really, a how can I not write about our favorite noseless dark lord?

nefari: thank you! I will try to update soon.

floating-in-fantasy: Thank you for the high compliments...I'm blushing. :)


	6. Chapter 6

In his office, Snape's aching head and bruised limbs begged for rest, for collapse—any place would do, even the cold flagstones of the floor looked inviting. He suppressed the urge, instead locating the nerve regeneration potion in his personal stores; the taste of the liquid lingered on his tongue with the tang of blood and burnt sugar, and momentarily he felt the potion begin to work, tingling through his nerves with the sensation of a hundred bee stings. He welcomed the sensation, though it walked the line between discomfort and true pain. Repeated exposure to the Cruciatus Curse had the possibility of causing permanent nerve damage, often resulting in numbness of the extremities or tremors of the hands. He had no fear for the pain itself, but –_there are no potions masters with hands that tremble_. He felt a certain amount of—pride in his abilities. He knew exactly the extents of his talents, and held them neither more than less than they were. And he knew that he was the best potionsmaster in his generation, at the very least. He had few fears now, and pain and death were not among them; he had very little to lose. But he feared being crippled, being useless. Being weak.Somewhere in his thoughts, each time he underwent the Cruciatus Curse, and each time that he took the nerve regeneration potion, was the idea that he had two things and two things exactly to offer: his talents as a spy and his talents as a potions-maker. If he were to be discovered as a spy and by some miracle escape immediate capture and execution, he still would have one thing to offer. _What use would I have then,_ he thought, _if my nerves were destroyed, as a ruined man with quavering hands? What way would I have to repay the great debt that I bear?_

He stood while the potion did its work, sending off a quick coded floo to Dumbledore to advise him of his return—he would report to him, in depth, on the meeting in the morning. The thought of the bearded face and twinkling blue eyes brought with it, in a vivid flash, the memory of his last conversation with the man, and with it the memory of Potter--the memory that he had so successfully banished from his mind—sprung up. The cavernous, haunted look of the eyes, the overwhelming depths that they held. The boy was in the hospital wing now, he thought. It would be an easy enough matter to slip in, unseen, to check on him—_no_. He must fight these thoughts. _What is the source of this weakness? Is it that Albus' words that have slipped into my mind…that we might construct some sort of peace, that he is Lily's son as well as James'? Albus has his own motives, his own goals. I have no illusions, I know that in the end, his goal is the triumph of the light, and will be perfectly happy to coerce any of us in order to ensure success. Though his coercion in far gentler than that of the Dark Lord..._ He valued and respected Dubledore, but knew enough not to accept all that he said at face value.

He sat at last, sinking into an armchair by the fire—a relic of one of Dumbledore's visits which Snape had never bothered to dismiss. Though he would be loath to admit it, he had a certain affection for the armchair, though its garish chintz and exuberant squashyness were incongruous in the sparse study…he supposed he could turn it to a more appropriate black. He sank into its generous plush embrace, and allowed himself to relax slightly, the sharp lines of his shoulders loosening in the heat of the fire, the warm smell of woodsmoke, the gentle crackle of smoldering logs. He shifted in the chair, and a throb of pain as he jarred his elbow brought him back to wakefulness. He remembered that he had not yet treated the bruises sustained during the Dark Lord's reprimand.

He _accioed_ the balm to his chair and shifted his robes, removing the outer robe, to rub ointment on the bruises that bloomed blue and delicate violet on his pale skin, on the knees, shins and elbows that had beaten unyielding stone. He took absent note of the white scars that trailed across his skin between the dark blossoms. He knew the origins of nearly all of them… the gouged skin where the Cerberus had sunk his fangs; the marks of the first great war, made in equal parts through battle and through punishment by fellow Death Eaters; the burns made by flame and chemical that marked his forearms, badges of years of potions-making; the older, faded scars that were badges of his childhood and of those dark, endless-seeming nights at Spinners End._ These marks hardly matter, _he thought, _only hashes on the wall to mark the passage of days. In the end, it is only flesh and blood after all. Only dust. _His eyes moved, almost of their own accord, to his left forearm, to the mark there, darker than any bruise. _This one—_he thought_ this is deeper than the flesh._ He thought of the historical practice of branding—of animals and slaves, of criminals—thieves and gypsies, the "A" of adulterers. It marked the flesh and the soul as well. _Once I wore it with pride…_ he thought, with a mixture and contempt and pity for that young boy who had knelt at the Dark Lord's feet, his heart filled with adulation and pride as the Dark Mark was seared into his skin and his soul, for the boy that he had been. His eyes were on the licking flames of the hearth, and he realized with irritation that he was unconsciously tracing the lines of the skull, the writhing serpent. He jerked his hand away and pulled the sleeve of his shirt over the mark, buttoning the cuff firmly around his wrist. He stood abruptly, disconcerted by the direction which his thoughts had taken. Crossing the living room, he moved to a locked mahogany cabinet; within it lay elf-made wine and firewhisky. As he crossed the room, he glanced through the doorway to the left of the cabinet, through the open door of the spare room, glimpsing in the soft light the tangle of sheets in the be where Potter had rested, the now-empty bed. He felt suddenly the emptiness of the dungeon rooms with a crushing pang; it seemed that the solitude that normally comforted and shielded him had turned sour. He turned from the cabinet in a liquid swish of robes that belied his stiff muscles, sweeping through the dungeon doors in a show that was meant to convince no one but himself. The castle itself, at least would not betray him. The castle was the closest thing to a home that he had ever known, he knew these halls, the wide corridors and the trick staircases well enough to walk them blind, as well as he knew the lines in his own hands; he knew the hidden passages that veined the castle, as least as well as a Weasley twin, though they never would have guessed it. With long, silent strides, he rose from the depths of the castle.

In the hospital wing, Harry rose from his bed, still sleepless in the now-dark room. He slid from the sheets, leaving a hollow of warmth behind him. His wand, he found on the bedside table. The invisibility cloak that he normally wore on his night-time excursions remained in the trunk beneath his bed in the Gryffindor common room, but he felt that he knew the passageways, the alcoves and nooks, the hidden corridors of the castle well enough to avoid the patrols of Filch. Madam Pomfrey had set no wards, she assumed that he had taken the potion, which left him to wander free of suspicion so long as he was careful. He moved through dark halls toward the owlry, where he found Hedwig among the roosts. She had obviously returned from her nightly hunting; h could see the satisfaction written on her face, her golden eyes gleaming molten in the dark like amber lanterns, her white plumage bright in the pale moonlight. Harry looked out to the Hogwarts grounds, gently stroking the owl's soft feathers while she affectionately nibbled his sweater cuff. She hooted softly, and Harry realized that where he stood, he was silhouetted against the light, so that any observant viewer from one of the lower windows could see that there was a human someone in the tower. He made his goodbyes to Hedwig and descended.

Wandering back in the murkier margins of the hallways, he was aware of the hundreds of students who slept now, lost in dreams or in blander featureless sleep. He was never so aware of his isolation as in the very late and very early hours of the day, when the rest of the world that he knew lay in slumber and he was left alone with his ghosts. They were at a distance now, watching quietly with knowing eyes, like the images in a foeglass that had temporarily receded. They were no longer close enough to gently whisper painful things to him, but they were still there. Pausing by one of the long windows by the corridor, he looked out onto the lake and to the darker mass of forest that lay beyond it. From behind him, he suddenly heard the clearing of a throat and suppressed the reflexive urge to jump. Turning , he could not discern a face with his eyes adjusted to the moonlight, but the height- _Not Filch_, he thought. _Could it be—?_

"Potter." The voice, drawing those two syllables out, low and silky, left no doubt._ Snape._

"Professor." He managed to keep his voice steady, neutral. Snape took a step forward, into the soft light. _God, he looks nearly as bad as I do_, thought Harry. The circles under his eyes were accentuated by the light, as were the hollows of his cheeks.

"I was under the impression that you were to be in the hospital wing, recuperating, rather than wandering the halls past midnight. Was I mistaken?"

"No… sir, I couldn't sleep." _Apparently Snape couldn't sleep either_, thought Harry. _Because it's Mcgonagall's patrol tonight, and Snape has no reason to be up here, so close to the Hospital Wing. Not that I would dare mention it. _

"Presumably Madam Pomfrey can provide potions for that express purpose."

"Sir, I can't take Dreamless for the rest of my life, it's addictive." Snape would know this well, as a potionsmaster, but he made no derisive comment. "And even if it weren't, I can't… I can't keep running. I need to talk to you." _I have six years of experience that tell me that this is a bad idea, and ten minutes to tell me that it's a good one,_ Harry thought, yet some impulse spurred him on. _A self-destructive one, maybe._

"Potter, your friends, Madam Pomfrey, or the Headmaster would presumably be quite willing to allow you to spill your heart out to them. I am an improbable candidate, at best, to be your councilor." His voice was low and precise._ He knows what I mean, how can he pretend that he doesn't?_

"You know. You know what I mean, sir—" Rather than rising in frustration, Harry's voice dropped lower, taking on a quality that was only inches from pleading. The thunder of his pumping heart changed to a slow throb felt in his chest and across the delicate membranes of his eardrums and in the back of his eyes. Four days ago, he could never have imagined asking this man for help. _And yet here I am_.

"This is neither the time nor the place for such a discussion, Potter." Snape interrupted him, his voice absolutely emotionless. Harry felt something plummet within him.

"Please, sir." It was almost a whisper, but Harry knew that Snape had heard it clearly. Snape's face changed almost imperceptibly at those words, the slightest tension in the line of his mouth the only sign to the emotions that warred within him, that and the clenched hands that hid within shadows and robed. A long moment passed, as those two words hung trembling in the air between them.

"Tomorrow is a Saturday, therefore your classmates will presumably be visiting Hogsmeade, providing an opportunity to conduct this…meeting. Be at the southern castle exit at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Now, return to your bed and sleep." He turned on his heel, and in a silent billow of black robes, descended in the direction of the dungeons.


	7. Chapter 7

Snape woke early the next morning, though no light spilled into the dungeon to give proof of the breaking dawn. He ascended the stairs to the Headmaster's office as the rest of the castle stirred to the edge of wakefulness. When he had reached the gargoyle and told it the name of the proper sweet, and it turned on its stony hinges, the Headmaster was waiting for him.

Albus was dressed in plum silk this morning, the dressing gown sashed with a particularly vibrant jade, his beard and hair as luminous silver as pensieve-caught memories in the morning sun. Snape took the chair opposite the desk, a plush armchair in a green that corresponded suspiciously with the Headmaster's attire.

"Good morning, Severus. I've taken the liberty of making you a cup of tea," he said, indicating the cup beside the armchair with the slightest inclination of his head. Steaming hot, and from the scent, Snape could tell that it was his preferred blend. It was the sort of thing that Dumbledore would make his business to know. His eyes flicked over the Headmaster's face, taking note of the lines of the face illuminated by the bright morning light, the furrows in the brow etched deeper than ever before; it was another reminder that the war had marked them all in ways both seen and unseen.

"The meeting last night was…tolerable," Snape informed the Headmaster unperturbedly, refusing to engage in meaningless pleasantries. "The Dark Lord was displeased with my failure to immediately report news of Potter to him." Dumbledore's brows pinched with concern, but Snape continued on. "He has, however, made considerable progress in his infiltration both at the Prophet and in the Ministry." As Snape reported the details of the penetration of Voldemort's influence at both organizations, Dumbledore regarded him with hands carefully folded on the desk before him, a slight furrow developing between his brow with the addition of each of Voldemort's victories, the news of the Death Eaters sending their influence through the wizarding world like the insidious spread of an infection. Snape neglected no detail, each fragment drawn out carefully from the previous night's events. At the end of his account, Albus sat silently, contemplatively. "Will that be sufficient, Albus?"

"As a matter of fact, I had meant ask of your progress concerning the matter of Potter." The headmaster steepled his long fingers, lowering his chin to look at Snape over the rim of his half-moon glasses. Snape thought of his encounter the previous night, the memory of Potter's cracking voice in the shadowy corridor seeming distant and dreamlike in the sunlit morning. He was loath to share it with the headmaster, knowing the satisfied look that would overcome Albus' face, so content that whatever plans he had laid had taken effect. Snape was not inclined to give the headmaster such satisfaction.

"What exactly are your motives, Albus, in encouraging this…friendship between Potter and myself?" Snape asked, arching an eyebrow.

"It is not enough of a motive to desire to encourage understanding and acceptance between you and the boy?"

"Not when such a relationship constitutes a danger to both Potter and myself." His voice was neutral, as if he and the Headmaster were merely discussing the weather, as opposed to the fate of the savior of the wizarding world.

"A danger? In what way?" Snape felt a spark of anger at Dumbledore's feigned incomprehension, a spark which he quickly buried. _You_, he told himself, _have no reason to be angry on your own behalf, and no right to be angry on the behalf of Potter._

"Do not play the fool, Albus. It does not suit you." Snape responded flatly. "Any affection on my part for Potter would be a weakness in my dealings with the Dark Lord. And as for Potter, I would merely be another liability, another friendship that could be used against him, another person who he would risk himself for. If I were to care for Potter in any way, it would hardly incline me to strike up a friendship with him." If he cared for him—if he cared at all for Lilly's son, Lilly who he had failed, the son who he had already wounded… If he was moved by the pain in those haunted green eyes, he should not cause any more. "It is perhaps the last thing that would be beneficial to him to build a relationship with yet another person who will die and leave him alone, to give him another death that will leave him crippled with guilt." He thought, but did not say to the Headmaster, _You and I know that it is doubtful that I will live through the final battle, if I am even to survive that long._

Dumbledore's eyes had lost their twinkle. In these moments, they were not the serene blue of the cloudless summer sky, but rather the sea. The shallows teeming with life, the depths that held the bones of ships and the husks of men crusted amidst the wild things, and most of all the eternal, unfathomable chasms of the ageless sea, the wide dreaming depths and spans of salt and dreams and memories, ancient and vast. The twinkle was only the sun in the azure sky, reflected upon the surface of these depths. A silence spanned the distance between the two men, the blue eyes meeting the inscrutable black.

"I will be honest with you, Severus." There was no cheerful, _my dear boy_, added to the end of that sentence. "I will admit that I do have an ulterior motive. There is power to be found in love, and in friendship, tremendous power." _What power?_ Snape wondered, bitterly._ What power of protection had friendship granted to the Order of the Phoenix? What protection had it granted to the Marauders, for despite their many faults they had certainly had a friendship with bonds like iron? And as for him…Lilly had befriended him, had trusted him, and it had not saved her. It certainly had not saved her._ A smaller voice whispered,_ But her friendship saved you_. He pushed it aside. The guilt that gnawed his soul was a constant companion, and he was nearly inured to its presence. A man could get used to nearly anything, he had thought. But Potter had put cracks in the armor he wore, had seared him to the very heart…_This too shall pass_, he thought. _The pain will pass, the grief will pass, the hope, too, will pass away._ He prayed that it would, to whatever spirits would accept his prayer.

"Love has a power beyond his comprehension or control, the workings of the heart are a sphere beyond his comprehension or control, therefore he has consistently dismissed and underestimated its power. It is a weapon with which I would equip all the warriors of the light." He paused, voice softening. "Even you, Severus. Caring for Harry gives you something to lose. Why are you so very sure that that is such a terrible thing?"

_The last time I had something to lose, I lost it, and I nearly destroyed myself and a great number of others. The last time I had something to lose, I joined the Dark Lord. And the price of having something to lose was nearly unforgivable. I am very sure that it is a terrible thing._ _Love and friendship do not, should not enter into my work, _he thought. He thought of the stricken green eyes, of the desperate embrace, the shuddering sobs that had wracked the boy's frame_. I live this life for a reason. What reason? _responded that small, subversive voice that he thought he had crushed years ago. The ascetic life that he lived, the sacrifices he made, the night meetings with their corresponding_ crucios_, the spying, the brewing of potions that occupied him long into the night, who were these sacrifices for? Were they to assuage his own guilt? Were they a private form of penance, a debt owed for the payment of his sins? _Control yourself_, he thought. He had rejected emotion for a _reason_. What redemption was to be found in further emotion? He had been destroyed by hate and anger, and he had burned every bridge behind him, burned every trace of emotion to the ground. How could he give in to them again, and what could be drawn from those ashes?

"I am already willing to die for you and for the cause of the light, at your order. Do you doubt it?"

"My faith in you is firm. But…are you willing to _live_ for the cause of the light?"

"I'm hardly willing to live for Potter, if that is what you are insinuating." Dumbledore did not offer further argument on this point, hearing the crackle of thunder in Snape's voice. The idea sputtered through Snape's mind. _Live? Live for what?_ He lived only until he could pay the debt that he owed… he had spared no thought for what would come after. The idea was unimaginable for him…

"My main concern, Severus, is that Harry may not last until the final battle. The things that give him power against Voldemort"—Snape still flinched, nearly imperceptibly, at the name—"His capacity to love, to trust, his loyalty, these things are tearing him asunder. As you had the unfortunate luck to discover." There was no condemnation in this last interjection, but Snape still felt its sting, though he would not show it. The _And the sacrifices that Potter made, what are those for_? _What were the nightmares that he suffered, but proof of the price that he had paid? _The question, the only question that mattered, was not what was best for Snape. It was not a question of what Snape wanted. It was not the question of what Dumbledore wanted. It was of what was best for Harry. _And what if what is best for Harry—for Potter—is my friendship? If the only way of saving Harry is through my own poor efforts at love? Better to seek affection from a tiger, at worst he would only be eaten._ He thought of the boy's voice, stretched thin and almost breaking. _Please._ His mind moved through a careful calculus of knowledge and longing and loss. _What a cruel sense of humor Fate possesses. _He had burned his bridges, he could not return that way. And if he were to go forward…he must find redemption through another route, a new route, forged through the wilderness of his heart. If he could.

"And you have chosen me, to preserve the fragile psyche of the wizarding world's last great hope against the Dark Lord." His mind spun while his voice dripped sarcasm.

"It would not be precisely true to say that. You have been chosen, though not by me. The heart has a will all its own, beyond reason and beyond understanding. It will make its own choices, often against the better judgment of the mind. Harry has chosen you, for reasons that are not entirely known to me, and are certainly not comprehensible for him. But it cannot be undone." Silence descended upon the room again. The birds twittering outside the window were in faint counterpoint to the tension of the room.

"Fine. I will…reach out to the boy. But expect no miracles from me."

"Thank you, Severus." _I am not doing this for you,_ thought Snape, but simply inclined his head. As he left the room, Snape cursed the traitorous heart that betrayed his reason, and the hope that rose within him against all the efforts of his will.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry arrived at the southern castle gate at quarter to ten, having watched from a high window as his classmates had left, straggling towards Hogsmeade in pairs and clusters, the sound of laughter and babbled conversation rising to the window, as if their laughter was lighter than air. He had seen Malfoy pass, pale hair incandescent in the morning light, in the company of hulking Goyle and Crabbe, whose guffaws came a beat too late after each of Malfoy's sneered comments. He had recognized the flaming copper of each Weasley-head, seen Hermione walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Ron, and seen the way her hand silently slipped into his. And he had felt removed from the situation by more than just a pane of glass.

He leaned against the wall of the gate, turning his face towards the sun. The sky was startlingly blue, an achingly clear shade that seemed to have spilled from an errant paint tube. Above a still-green lawn that sloped down to the lake, the trees stretched now-naked limbs heavenward. The lake itself mirrored and swallowed the sky, placid. Others might have found the placidity comforting, calming, but instead, Harry felt that nature was looking on in cool indifference. Beneath that glassy surface, he knew, lay depths where murk spilled like oil.

Minutes trickled by, the mixture of anticipation and anxiety warping the flow of time. What was it that he expected of Snape? What was it that he needed? He had no answer. But Snape alone did not see him as the savior-to-be of the wizarding world, halo already in place. _Savior_, he thought bitterly._ You'd think that they know, already, what happens to saviors and saints. You'd think that they'd know there's no victory march, that the halo only comes after a crown of thorns and a bloody end._ He thought of Hermione, arguing with Ron over his hospital bed—that he was a pawn to Dumbledore, if a valued one. He suppressed a shiver, and wrapped his robes closer, as if it was the weather that had chilled him.

_Savior, despite the fact that all the sacrifices seem to be made by others. The blood of others, spilled to protect me. I didn't save them, and it seems I can't save myself. As if I deserved saving._ If the glances that Snape had spared had been of contempt, mixed with loathing, that was likely more appropriate, free of the fairy tale that others seemed to determined to press upon him. All he had was the instinct that Snape understood what it was to be isolated, to be cast in a role without a choice and sent to play his part to the end, that he had known grief during the last war, no matter which side he had felt it for. That, and that fragment of tenderness in those dark eyes, a memory dreamlike now. He felt the tight hunger that bound the hollow places within him, the hunger that dared hope for things that he hardly deserved.

At last, Snape appeared. Harry started, straightened quickly, moved a half-step forward, but Snape did not pause; he passed as though Harry were an inconvenient piece of statuary, not warranting even a flicker of the eyes. The jolt of shock was tempered when Harry processed the words that had fallen from the professor's unmoving lips, dropped like a stray scrap of parchment: "Wait five minutes, then follow."

Harry reversed his forward movement, carefully reassembled his slouch against the gate. But of course. _He can't be seen with me_, Harry realized, tracking the movement of the dark figure along the grassy lakeshore. But then…why meet here, in the open, by the lake? Why here, on these shores; why not in the damp shadows of the dungeon; why not the infirmary; why not _anywhere_ else, in a nearly-unoccupied castle? He felt the knot in his stomach clench tightly. _Unfinished business_, he thought, the borrowed—stolen—memory of that spring day flashing bright through his open eyes. It was with no small measure of relief that he saw Snape pass that particular spot, following the rim of the lakeshore to a copse of still-green trees, within which he vanished from view.

Harry straightened once again, and walked with his best approximation of a lazy stroll towards the lake. He fought the urge to cut around that sunny patch of lakeshore, that particular beech tree. Instead, he forced himself to it and pressed his palm to the smooth plate of bark, the trunk thicker than in memory, swollen with the passage of time. He realized, belatedly, that Snape could likely see clearly from the grove, see Harry's little reverie. Let him see. Let him understand. Let it all be bared now. The sins of the father, passed on to the son, he thought. _And I was so proud of my father._ What expression would be on his face, now, to see his son asking Snape for help? And Sirius. What would they say? _Snivellus_. Harry could imagine Sirius' voice, filled with contempt and the prospect of amusement. _I expected more of you, Harry,_ said his father's voice, the dream voice, colored with faint surprise, accusation, disappointment. _Well, I expected more of you, too, dad_, Harry thought, and turned to the pine grove.

In the deep shade struck through with the autumn sun and the air sharp with pitchy scent of pine sap, Harry blinked as his eyes adjusted to the changed light. The clearing came into slow focus, the professor's shape among the dark tree trunks, then the planes of the pale face, the dark eyes.

Harry had mentally rehearsed dozens of speeches the night before—apologies and rages, confessions, pleas and accusations; most of them a volatile mixture of all elements. But now, he drew his shoulders straight, bracing himself physically against his emotion, and, forcing his voice steady, low and formal, Harry spoke, "Sir, I want to apologise. For the way that my father and Sirius treated you. And for the things I said during…Remedial Potions. Most of all for calling you a coward. " His eyes fixed upon Snape's own, searching the dark eyes for some expression, some thread of response to serve as a slender lifeline. His heart beat against his ribs, time slowing—as it did in Quiddich, as his fingers clasped the Snitch, or as, falling through the air, in the instant before he struck the ground.

Snape had thought that he was immune to surprise. _Harry is making a habit of proving me wrong, in more ways than one. _When had he begun using his first name? When had he unconsciously relinquished the formal name that kept the boy at a distance?_ Harry_. He had watched as the boy crossed the grounds, as he hesitated at the tree, and realized that his choice of meeting place had perhaps been a poor one. But he had not expected an apology, and not an apology on James' behalf. The way that Harry had squared his shoulders sent a pang through him that he fought to suppress, fighting the protective paternalistic instinct that rose in him with the knowledge of the weight that the boy bore across those narrow shoulders. He had a sudden, acute sense of the vulnerability of the moment.

"Your father's actions are not your responsibility to bear. Were all we bound by the faults of our fathers—" He allowed the pause to linger. _Potter has seen a few fragments of my childhood memories, such as they were_, Snape thought, _and those samples of Tobias Snape were quite enough to show his particularly grievous faults._ "—we would be condemned at birth. Your apology, on the other hand I will accept." There was a subtle unwinding of tension in Harry's face, the jaw unclenching with a slight exhalation of breath. He realized suddenly that if apology was owed to him, that he owed an apology to Harry. As he had owed an apology, never delivered, to Lily. He was not in the habit of making apologies, not in the habit of being wrong. Apologies he had made as a child, to his father, as a man, to Voldemort. Never to those who were truly owed. And a part of him—the wounded, angry young man that he had been—raged against the idea of apology, though he knew in his heart that it was due, that it was necessary, though the boy would not imagine that he was owed. _My transgressions against him warrant an apology. There is a debt that I owe, and if it requires a sacrifice…if it requires a sacrifice of pride, so much the better. Let the price be high, let it be the last thing that I cling to, now. Your pride is weakness, foolishness. _The peace between them was fragile, easily crushed, and if this was what was required…_Control youself, _he thought.

"Upon the condition" he continued, forcing himself to shape words that went against every instinct and habit that he possessed, "that you excuse the particular set of assumptions I held regarding you, and the actions that I made predicated upon them." Snape winced internally, the words spoken as coldly as if he were describing a potion formulation. Harry nearly managed to hide his surprise, mustering a nod and an "Agreed, sir," only a few seconds late. Snape could sense, even without using legimency, the emotion that burned bitter within the boy, the dark tones of despair and caustic self-loathing. Should he speak or allow Harry the silence to fill with the question or confession?

Harry found among the press of his thoughts and shocks the question that he needed to ask, every word feeling doubly weighted, doubly sharp in this shadowed grove. "In the last war—everyone that was lost, so many—how did anyone bear it? How did you bear it?" One dark eyebrow arched upwards at this question.

"I cannot speak for anyone else, but as for myself…occlumency." _Oh, gods_, Harry thought. Snape continued, voice softer, "I understand what it is to make a misjudgement in a time of turmoil, and what it is to lose one dearly loved because of that mistake." There was a flash of fugitive tenderness in his gaze, then, as his eyes fixed on some memory, and Harry wondered who it had been that Snape had lost. "To allow grief to rule is to surrender to emotion. Occlumency would allow you to control that emotion. Not to eliminate it, but to bury it deeply enough to… continue to function. To fight."

Harry saw the spark and rise of grief in Snape, felt the brief, absurd, impulse to make some gesture of comfort, but had no sense of what action to take. The rituals of affection were strange to Harry, raised in a house barren of love or pity, more a prison than a home. But then, he supposed, they were hardly familiar to Snape. There were no moments of tenderness to be found in the meetings of the Death Eaters, no gestures of love in the house of Ellen Prince. _He had lowered his guard for an instant_, Harry thought, with the sensation that he had intruded upon him in some way. Then his eyes returned to Harry's, flat again, his tone cool. "You would find Dumbledore willing to resume lessons in the subject with you."

"Dumbledore-" Harry blurted, then more carefully, "Sir, I'd prefer it if you would teach me." as if it were a simple, polite request. Not as if his soul had been stretched over the anvil, beaten by the hammer of anguish, the strike unrelenting. Snape turned toward him sharply, as if seeing him anew. He had no words to convince the man; eloquence lost, lips powerless to give shape to emotions, only this. "Please."

The boy had reconstructed a paper-thin façade of stability, normality, since that collapse in the tower, but just beneath the surface, turmoil seethed. The effort required to cling to just that was evident in the tension of his frame, the pallor of his face, the slight tremor of his hands.

_This is the point at which a decision must be made_, he thought. In that face, those eyes, was everything that he had to lose. To the dark, one way, or another. _I should turn now, turn and leave. If I stay, I will only fail him, as I failed Lily. What could I offer, how could I protect him?_ He haggled with himself over these slender sums, so weighted by his perilous emotions._ The dark lord will find out, sooner or later, and then I will be only another weapon to further wound. But if I leave…who will save him then? _Harry was drowning, still; he could see the pitch of grief in his eyes, in the depths that held such despair. _If there is any hope for us at all, it lies in each other. _He knew that he would die at the hands of the dark, one way or another; he had accepted this. _What do I have to offer? My life, Dumbledore had said. _"Very well," he said, letting the words slide, then fall like a gavel, like an axe, and Harry offered the briefest ghost of a smile. Snape felt a sudden, fatalistic sense of calm. _This is how it will end. _He would protect the boy, as Lily had. With his life, and with his death. And then—perhaps in time, he would dare to hope for redemption.

**a/n:** I felt that Snape should/would apologize, but I'm not quite sure that I pulled it off—it certainly isn't something that would come easily to his character. I hope that this chapter is cohesive with the rest of the story—I lost some momentum with my (ahem) extended break.

But I want to thank everyone for your reviews! You all are the reason that I came back to this story, because I kept getting notification in my inbox, and had that sense of guilt at leaving this unfinished, and leaving you hanging. I think that this story is finished, as far as I can foresee. I know it's sort of a terrible ending, and I apologize for that; writing this last chapter was a bit of a slog. I do, however, plan to write a "Harry gets Rescued from the Dursleys! (by Snape!) fic" during August (I have a 50,000 word writing project planned for July)—so if you're interested, check back for that. Again, thank you all so much for reading and for reviewing! 3


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